


And we are here (as on a darkling plain)

by orphan_account



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-15
Updated: 2010-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world around him has come undone, unspooled like a dropped skein of thread, and the only thing he's sure of is Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And we are here (as on a darkling plain)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rhea_carlysse](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rhea_carlysse).



  
It's quiet when Mohinder comes to. It takes him a while to register that he's not in the back room of Primatech Paper anymore. He's lying on a bed, a hard pillow beneath his pounding head and a threadbare blanket thrown over the aching mess that is his body.

He wonders who won the fight, who's tucked him into this bed (this bed where the springs dig into his back and moving only makes him hurt in new places), who took him away from the carnage and confusion. He closes his eyes when he remembers that Nakamura is dead. Nothing he can do, now.

Somewhere out of his line of sight, a door creaks open. He opens his eyes.

"Good to see you up, Doctor Suresh," a voice says. Peter Petrelli comes to the side of his bed, and Mohinder sinks down, just a little.

 _Do you ever... get the feeling that you were meant to do something extraordinary?_

"Is Nathan dead?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"Nathan's been dead a long time, Doctor Suresh," Peter says. His face is a closed book (and that scar, that scar distorts everything), but his hands are gentle as he helps Mohinder to sit up, propped awkwardly against the cool iron of the bedframe.

It takes two tries to swallow the water that Peter holds to his lips, but he manages. When he's recovered from the effort, he lets Peter lay him down again. They sit in silence for a moment. Peter's watching Mohinder, and Mohinder resists the urge to shut his eyes again, to escape Peter's gaze. "What happened?" he asks, finally.

"Natha-" Peter says, "-the President was Sylar."

 _Oh, God._ Will he never be free of that man?

"Sylar was the President," Peter is saying, "he's been fooling us all for years. I- I killed him."

Mohinder smiles weakly. He's tired.

"Cut his head off," Peter says, almost to himself. He seems distant.

 _That honor belongs to the lowly cockroach... Remaining alive headless for weeks at a time._

"Did you double check?" Mohinder asks, knowing it's not really funny. Peter smiles all the same, and his scar twists up, making him look old.

"You should rest," he says, touching Mohinder's shoulder. Mohinder remembers that Nathan touched him all the time- Lord- Sylar touched him all the time, and he wonders if it runs in the family.

Sleep comes quickly to the ill.

*

Mohinder loses track of time, convalescing in his ratty bed in Las Vegas. Peter is an efficient, kind nurse (Mohinder suddenly remembers that Peter was a nurse, a real nurse, before- of course he would be good), and Mohinder wants for very little except answers.

 _Why?_

On the day when he can finally sit up on his own, when Peter slides a supporting arm around his shoulders so that he can stand up, Mohinder is still asking himself why things are the way they are. _Why?_ , the unanswerable question, the question he will always be seeking to answer.

The world around him has come undone, unspooled like a dropped skein of thread, and the only thing he's sure of is Peter. Peter Petrelli is there every day, patiently mending his wounds, knitting flesh together and salving bruises. They talk all the time, about what was and what might be. They argue about temporal physics and timelines and Hiro Nakamura. They argue about fate.

Will they all be here, in six months? Will any of this be here?

*

It creeps up on him slowly. He doesn't notice it, isn't really aware of it as he works to right all the wrongs he's caused. He spends all of his time helping Peter now, relocating people who are at risk, saving what lives he can.

Peter sweeps into their makeshift office- twins in Michigan who can both fly, who need to find new homes _right now._

"The militia are lining up," Peter says, his cheeks flushed with anger and exertion, "I'm going to go get them." He drops a file on Mohinder's desk, photos and medical records and falsified details.

"Be careful, Peter," Mohinder says, but Peter is already gone, vanished between one instant and the next.

 _Be careful._

It hits him then, just before Peter reappears with two struggling teenagers. Relief floods his chest, as always, and he can't help smiling at Peter like an idiot. Peter looks at him strangely for a moment, and then he's gone again, to get their parents.

Mohinder's no longer surprised at the rush of relief. He turns the idiotic smile on the twins, and gestures to the seats in front of the desk. "Please, sit down. We're going to help you."

*

Three weeks later, Peter (settled, for the moment) starts up the old conversation.

"I wonder what Hiro's doing," he says, slumped on the couch beside Mohinder. The Vice President is being sworn in on the television.

Mohinder turns to look at him. "Saving the world, I hope."

"Yeah..." Peter says. "But how will we know? I mean, will all of this go away?" He turns to face Mohinder. His eyes are dark. "What's gonna happen to us?" he asks.

"God knows," Mohinder says. "It's always possible, of course, that this is Hiro Nakamura's future. We'd have no way of knowing. You can't change the future, Peter. Any change in the past affects our present whether we know it or not." He sighs. "I'm not a physicist or a philosopher, Peter, but I think that Hiro will change things for the better. No one could see this and let it go on."

It has to change. Otherwise, why? Why all their struggles, why all the pain and desperation?

"Well, you _say_ you're not a philosopher..." Peter grumbles. Mohinder laughs, and for a moment they both forget the outside world.

Things are all right. Things will be all right.

Peter squeezes his shoulder. "This world isn't all bad," he says, smiling.

*

He wakes up that night and Peter is sitting beside his bed. His face is inscrutable.

"Mohinder," Peter says softly. "This is- I'm sorry... I-"

Mohinder reaches for his glasses. "Are you all right?" he asks.

He drops his glasses when Peter leans down and kisses him.

"You're all I've got left," Peter says when he pulls back. "We're all I've got, and I don't know how long we'll have this..."

"Long enough," Mohinder says, drawing Peter down towards him.

*

  


 _Ah, love, let us be true  
To one another! for the world, which seems  
To lie before us like a land of dreams,  
So various, so beautiful, so new,  
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,  
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;  
And we are here as on a darkling plain  
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,  
Where ignorant armies clash by night._


End file.
